Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,69

the inspecteur growled at him. “You will pay for this.”

Footsteps echoed across the flagstones. Three more pulses surged through the air. Marcellus dove behind the idling patroleur and scrambled toward the docking station where his moto gleamed and hovered, like it was eagerly awaiting his arrival. As he mounted the bike and disengaged the lock, he could feel numbness spreading to his fingers. The paralyzeur was working its way through his nerves, shutting down all feeling, all sensation. He shook out his right hand, trying to bring some of the sensation back. But it was a lost cause. The paralyzeur would take hours to wear off. He was going to have to somehow drive this moto one-handed.

Revving the engine, Marcellus took one final glance up at the window. General Bonnefaçon still stood there, watching him with an almost amused expression. And, for a moment, Marcellus swore he could hear his grandfather’s thoughts as clearly as if the general were whispering them right into his ear.

“Always so hasty to act, aren’t you, Marcellus?”

The moto roared beneath him, anxious to take him far away from this place. From that steely gaze. From those words that Marcellus feared were all too true.

Just as Chacal and his deputies came barreling around the patroleur with their rayonettes raised, Marcellus lifted his feet and sped out of the gates, out of Ledôme, and into the night. He refused to turn around. Refused to glance behind him. Even though he was certain he was never coming back.

- Chapter 20 - ALOUETTE

“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL me?”

“We were always going to tell you, Little Lark. We’ve just been waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Waiting for you to be ready. And now you are.”

Everything around Alouette was blurry and hazy, covered in clouds. The memory of her last night in the Refuge seeped in and out of her consciousness like wisps of smoke. Too thick to ignore. Too thin to grasp on to.

“You lied! You should have told me! You should have trusted me!”

“I’m sorry. But please know, we only lied to protect you. Little Lark—”

“Don’t call me that! I am not your Little Lark. Not anymore.”

Colors flashed in and out of her view—green, silver, a dirty, muted brown. She tried to blink, but she wasn’t sure if her eyelids were actually moving or not. Her muscles were millions of kilomètres away from her mind. Out of reach. Out of contact.

She felt something hard and plastique beneath her. A chair? But she couldn’t sit up. Her body was weighed down. And her arms—why couldn’t she move her arms?

The clouds finally started to clear from her vision, but she was still seeing two of everything. Two hulking silver machines. Two sets of spindly tubes snaking out of the top, filled with a dark red liquid. She attempted to follow them with her eyes, until they disappeared into the flesh of two arms.

Her arm.

Her blood.

Whisking out of her, into that giant, whirring contraption.

And that’s when the clouds started to clear from her brain, too. She was lying in a chair in the extraction room of the blood bordel. Metal clamps encircled her wrists, holding them in place. She managed to cast a single glance around the room, but it was strangely vacant now. All the other chairs were empty.

“Wha ahr yoo doin … ?” Alouette’s words were mangled and deformed.

Madame Blanchard’s face appeared over her, her harsh features blurring in and out of focus as she leaned in close. “I’m sorry to do this, Madeline, but your blood is just too valuable to let you walk out the door.”

Alouette’s brain registered the fear, but for some reason she couldn’t feel it. Whatever médicament they had injected her with was too strong. “Buh my mama … ,” she garbled. She wanted to remind the madame that her mother had been a friend. The woman had said so herself.

Somehow the madame’s tightly drawn face restricted even further as something passionate and vengeful flashed in her eyes. “Your maman was a croc. Obviously, she conned us both. She lied about you being dead, and, like a sot, I believed her. She’s a good liar, that Lisole. She put on quite a show. Tears, shaking, the whole bit. She had me wrapped around her scrawny little finger. But now, seeing you here—quite alive, I might add—I realize what a fool I was. Clearly, it was all just a hoax—the death, the funeral, the grieving. A stunt so she could sneak out of town without paying her debts.” The